CHONG-MOON LEE / From the depths of longing for a hamburger he couldn't afford and contemplating suicide, this entrepreneur rose to such success he was able to give $15 million to S.F.'s Asian Art Museum

Lee says he believes successful immigrants have a duty to contribute to the society that has helped them achieve personal success.

He has won and lost fortunes twice in his life, at times eating 21-cent packages of Top Ramen and flirting with suicide.

But he persevered and last year sold a majority of his interest in Diamond Multimedia for $92 million.

From his home and the offices of Amvex, his new venture capital firm in San Jose, Lee reflected on his life.

Q: Why did you decide to give $15 million to the Asian Art museum? A: It's a long story. Asia is a very sophisticated area from the viewpoint of Westerners, especially Americans, but there is very little understanding of the culture. We Americans refer to "Southeast Asia," but the people who live there hate that. They say, "But we are Vietnamese, or Laotian or Cambodian," and even the Malaysian prime minister recently complained about it. It's such little things people have to learn about. I see the art and culture center as a way to foster understanding between the United States and Asian countries.

Q: Why is this important to you?

A: For one thing, so many Asians have come to this country and taken advantage of its educational system, its technology and even its investments in their own countries, yet so few have given anything back. That's also true for many wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who have two airplanes and three yachts, but do not return anything to the community.

Q: Are there any other reasons?

A: Yes. Asian countries almost without exception have been occupied by Westerners in the past few hundred years: Indonesia by the Dutch, Singapore, Hong Kong and India by the British, Malaysia by the British. But they still have a different mentality. Westerners increasingly settle their differences through negotiations, but rulers in Asian countries have no experience in settling or negotiating matters. I hope that this museum and performing arts center will provide a place where we and they can together debate, we can argue, we can present the problems -- theirs and ours -- so that both sides will learn about negotiating.

Q: It sounds like you expect conflict in Asia soon and see this as a preventative measure. Is that true?

A: Well, suppose 15 years from today, China crosses the border and they try to invade neighboring countries. Which country in Asia can stand up and say, "Hey you, Mr. China, you cannot do this!" Korea is too small. Japan has no armaments. So who will it be? America. Asians today pressure the United States to open up its markets while they keep theirs closed, but in their hearts they know there is nobody other than the Americans who can step in, without totalitarian intentions or a desire to rule, and keep this region peaceful.

Q: You are said to be a distant descendant of the Lee dynasty. What does that mean to you?

A: Yes, my ancestor was a king -- Sei-Jung -- who invented the Korean language in about 1385 or so, and my family ruled for about 500 years until the Japanese took over in 1905. But we now have a rule in our family: Never get into politics. However, since we are a royal family, we feel an obligation to demonstrate how we differentiate ourselves through achievements.

Q: Wasn't your immediate family in the pharmaceutical business?

A: Yes, they manufactured antibiotics and I was a very successful businessman with them.

Q: Was your father the head of the business?

A: No, his elder brother was. My father passed away during the war and before that he was a Chinese herbal doctor. The family has only been in pharmaceuticals since 1945.

Q: Why did you leave that business and come to this country and start over?

A: The government, the military government that took over in 1961, was looking for someone to act as an interpreter. In those days, not many people spoke English. So these guys asked me to participate in trade missions as an interpreter. I did that for many years, but the government kept asking me to join them. I didn't want to join them so I kept postponing that until, finally, in 1970, I just left.

Q: Why didn't you want to join them?

A: These people broke the constitution! They just took over and threw out the democratically elected government and killed people! How could I be part of this? I'm supposed to be one of these American-educated kids, OK? How could I be part of this?

Q: When you left Korea, were there any reprisals against your family?

A: No, because my family simply said that all of a sudden, this guy, me, had just disappeared.

Q: How many languages do you speak?

A: Korean, Japanese, English and very little Chinese.

Q: Were you married at the time you came to the United States?

A: Yes.

Q: And you had children.

A: Yes.

Q: And your family came with you?

A: Afterward.

Q: How long were you alone here?

A: Six months before I brought them over. By that time I had already saved about $4,000 per month.

Q: Did you have money when you first came to the United States?

A: I had no money. But I knew this guy, Louis Burridge, who is still an adviser to the Taiwan government. He helped me come here. Once I was here, I went to a close-out show in Los Angeles and saw a lot of merchandise at one- tenth the price. I started exporting this dirt-cheap stuff to Japan -- galvanized wastebaskets, even Spaulding golf balls for which I paid $1.50 per dozen and sold for $3 in Japan.

Q: Where'd you get the startup capital?

A: That's the key: You don't need money. You just say, "Give me three weeks, and I'll find a buyer for you."

Q: But how did you get into the high-technology business?

A: I had a friend who'd been working at Hewlett-Packard for many years. He and another friend said, "You should join the electronics business."

Q: So what did you do?

A: Well, that was in 1977-78. I had a daughter and I bought her an Apple II in 1979. Then in 1982, I bought my son an IBM-PC, but I always found him playing in his sister's room with her machine. When I asked him why, he told me the IBM-PC was was too difficult and there weren't the sort of educational games for it there were on the Apple. So I thought: We have this machine that should operate easily, like a car from Ford or Chrysler. And then I got the idea to develop an operating system for the PC that would run Apple programs.

Q: How'd you go about doing this?

A: An engineer I was working with said it could be done in six months, but it took six and a half years.

Q: Why so long?

A: Because Apple had the copyright patent, so I could make it but couldn't sell it. The copyright hurdle took me that long to cross.

Q: And you've said in speeches that you pursued this dream even though it cost you everything: your home, your money, your family.

A: Absolutely . . . all the money, everything.

Q: How much money did you put into this?

A: Including borrowing, I think I put more than $2 million into it.

Q: And your wife left you?

A: Yes, my wife left me and she took the children.

Q: You said in a speech that it was so bad, that you were so depressed, that you actually held a gun to your head. Is that true?

A: Oh, only about three times! Three times. That's a true story.

Q: What kept you from shooting yourself?

A: I'm not tough enough, maybe. I have a son, and a granddaughter and a grandson. Every time I put the gun to my head, my granddaughter's face showed up. And also my son's and I thought about how he could explain to his kids about how their grandfather died. This is a family shame, to do this, and I'm supposed to be Christian.

Q: Were you religious then?

A: Yes, I prayed, "God, Just allow me to drive around in a Chevy or a Pinto. Just let me have three meals a day, and come and worship you every Sunday. That's all I want. Help me, God." I only had money to eat Top Ramen, rice and a few vegetables. I remember going to McDonald's and I was so hungry for meat, I wanted a hamburger. But I only had money for french fries and water. Even the IRS was after me, because I couldn't meet the payroll tax. They dangled handcuffs in front of me.

Q: How'd you survive this?

A: I learned that if you are honest and show that you work hard, people will help you. The IRS guys probably should have arrested me. But I showed them my previous year's earnings records and they gave me another chance.

Q: And then you remarried? To a Japanese woman?

A: Yes, and it was surprising because Koreans and Japanese aren't supposed to get along.

Q: How did you come to marry a Japanese woman?

A: I had an export partner in Japan. He'd been watching how I ruined my life. So he came here to see how I was doing. I told him if I had $200,000 more I could finish this up. He said, "Well, you may need money, sure, but you don't know what you really need now. You need somebody to take care of you." So I asked this guy if he knew anybody.

Q: Did he?

A: He said, "My niece, Reiko, who never married." And I was worried, because she is much younger than I am. So this guy went back to Japan and convinced his niece and her father.

Q: Did you know whether you liked her?

A: Well, I knew her, but I was only concerned about the age difference. Other than that, I had no complaints, you know. So six months after that, my friend sent me a ticket. I went to Japan and we had our wedding.

Q: It was an arranged marriage?

A: Yes. My first marriage was also an arranged marriage.

Q: And you both came back to the United States?

A: Yes, and the first day I come back from Japan, I walked into the house and found that the telephone had been disconnected, for a $168 bill.

Q: So what'd you do?

A: I tried to sell a collector's pistol and a gold watch to pawnshops, but I couldn't get enough for them. So I borrowed money from a friend, Paul Han. That day, he lent me $2,000, even though he was filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy for his own business.

Q: When Tandy finally placed orders to manufacture your product for them, isn't it true that the banker wouldn't lend you money?

Q: So you asked Tandy to send an order through the bank rather than directly to you?

A: Yes. They sent the order to Bank West, the Santa Clara branch. The bank gave me money and I manufactured the board and I shipped it. Tandy paid the bank directly. The banker said he had never seen anything like this. I did this three times.

Q: So you sold your emulation card to Tandy, finally?

A: Yes, to Tandy and to IBM. Then, in 1988, they suggested I get into "multimedia." Eventually, I got into the graphics accelerator market.

Q: And you just sold the company?

A: Well, a majority interest in it for $92 million -- in cash. I still have 2.8 million shares at about $30 per share.

Q: What else do you plan to do with your money?

A: Well, this endowment to the Asian Art museum isn't my last one, you know. All my assets will go to charitable, educational and cultural foundations. I'm also starting a venture capital firm for small incubator companies.

Q: You're involved with the Hoover Institute at Stanford. Any specific plans to donate money there?

A: I'm thinking about contributing to the development of an Asian government and political studies institute, but I don't know if it'll be there.

Q: Are you leaving anything to your three children?

A: Very little, and they've agreed to this. I provided them with a good education, and I want them to go through life as I did. I like to see young people go through their lives in a meaningful, healthy way.

Q: How's that?

A: For example, I think today's credit cards are ruining young people's lives in a way.

Let me explain: Take a young kid who is going out with a girl and emotionally he's involved and asks if he can buy her a coffee, a tea, have a lunch. So they go to the restaurant and he realizes he can't afford lunch for both of them. So he asks the girl to order what she wants and he decides to only order soup for himself. This is not hardship. This is romance. This is the beauty of life. Today, with credit cards, you cannot do that. And I don't like that. I want my children to experience such struggles. I want them to learn about life.

CHONG-MOON LEE

-- 1928: Born August 1 in Dang Jin, Korea, near Seoul -- 1950 to 1953: Worked as a translator for the U.S. Army during the Korean War -- 1953: Received an L.L.B. degree from the law school of Chung An University -- 1959: Received an M.S. degree in Library Science and Data Management from
George Peabody College
at Vanderbilt University -- 1955-1970: Worked in Chong-Kun Dang, the family pharmaceutical business -- 1966: Received the equivalent of an M.B.A. from Korea University -- 1965-1970: Worked as a translator for the South Korean government while also continuing in the family pharmaceutical business -- 1970: Emigrated to the United States -- 1970 to 1977: Ran an export business -- 1977-82: Served as a consultant to technology companies regarding marketing and exporting to Asia -- 1982-1986: Developed and marketed a computer card that allows IBM computers to run Apple software -- 1982:
Founded Diamond Multimedia
, which sold graphics accelerator products for PCs -- 1995: In January, sells a majority stake in Diamond Multimedia to Summitt Associates, an investment banking firm, for $92 million cash -- 1995: In October, donates $15 million to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

WHERE TO SEND SUGGESTIONS

Who do you think should be featured in the Sunday Interview? Send suggestions to Sunday, San Francisco Chronicle, 901 Mission Street, San Francisco 94103.